


Three chapter rewrites for "In The Beginning"

by SciFiFanForever



Series: Tales from Pete's World [14]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:35:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25956100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SciFiFanForever/pseuds/SciFiFanForever
Summary: These are 3 rewritten chapters from "Tales From Pete's World - In The Beginning, to fit in with details in Big Finish's "Rose Tyler - The Dimension Cannon". I thought I would post them seperately before integrating them into the story.
Relationships: Metacrisis Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Series: Tales from Pete's World [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/131940
Comments: 3
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I was given Big Finish's audio book, "Rose Tyler - The Dimension Cannon" for my birthday and I can highly recommend it. In the stories there is a lot of information which needed to be added to my original story.
> 
> In this chapter, there is an addition about Rose and Mickey's relationship after the worst day of Rose's life.

** Chapter Nine **

  
  


** Dårlig Ulv Stranden **

  
  
  


** Five months after arriving in Pete's world **

  
  


‘Mum? Dad? Are you awake?’ Rose’s whispered voice floated through the darkness of the bedroom.

  
  


‘Urgh, Rose? Is that you?’ As soon as she asked it she knew it was a dumb question. Who else would call them Mum or Dad?

  
  


‘Are you all right Sweetheart? What’s the matter?’ She dug Pete in the ribs with her elbow. ‘Pete, somethin’s up with Rose!’

  
  


‘Mmmm, Wha’?’ he mumbled.

  
  


Rose came and sat on the bed as Jackie switched on the bedside lamp and screwed up her eyes against the light.

  
  


‘I had this vivid dream, but it wasn’t a dream, well I don’t think it was a dream,’ she was trying to put into words what she had experienced.

  
  


‘Can it wait ‘til the morning?’ Pete asked her.

  
  


‘NO! No, sorry, no. It’s important, I’ve got to go. He’s coming and I’ve got to be there for him.’ Rose was almost crying with the emotions of the dream / not-dream flying through her head.

  
  


‘all right Sweetheart, calm down. C’mon Pete, let’s have a cup of tea and hear what she’s got to say.’ Pete reluctantly got out of bed and put his dressing gown on. In the zombie fashion of someone still asleep but walking, he headed for the door.

  
  


They went down the hallway towards the top of the stairs, talking quietly when Mickey popped his head out of his room.

  
  


‘Whassup?’ he asked as they started to descend the stairs.

  
  


‘ET’s tryin’ to phone home,’ Jackie said sarcastically.

  
  


Mickey lit the fire in the lounge while Pete made a pot of tea. They sat in the comfy chairs and on the sofa as they settled down to hear Rose’s dream.

  
  


‘I was having that recurring dream when I’m falling down the white room and I can see Him reaching out to me and he’s shouting my name. I haven’t had this dream for a couple of months now.’ She took a sip of her tea. Pete yawned and then focussed back on Rose.

  
  


‘But this time, it turned from a frantic shouting to a gentle calling, and he reached my hand and pulled me from the void. When the breach closed and the howling and wind stopped, we were standing on a beach. He said he didn’t have much time and he wanted to see me, he needed to see me.’

  
  


‘Where was the beach?’ Mickey asked.

  
  


Rose frowned. ‘I know the beach, it seems familiar, but I don’t know where it is. I don’t even think I’ve been there before, but I know it. Does that sound crazy?’

  
  


‘It does Sweetheart, yes,’ Jackie said. ‘But where that alien’s concerned, no, it don’t sound crazy at all.’

  
  


‘The Doctor’s world of weirdness,’ Pete laughed, using Mickey’s phrase.

  
  


‘When I woke up I had this overwhelming feeling that I had to go north and go now, tonight, ‘cause he’s there on the beach waitin’ for me. Mum, I’ve got to go.’

  
  


‘C’mon Rose, I’ve seen what the Doctor can do. If he needs ya, we’re goin’,’ Mickey said. He stood up and headed back to his room to get dressed.

  
  


‘Hang on, we’re comin’ too,’ Jackie said. ‘I’ll make a flask of tea and some sandwiches for later.’

  
  


+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

  
  


Rose, Pete and Mickey were assembled in the darkened hallway by the front door, waiting for Jackie. They heard the flush of the toilet and the washing of hands. Mickey was grinning and Rose rolled her eyes.

  
  


‘Right then, are we ready?’ Jackie asked as she came along the hall. ‘Pete, have you got your keys to get back in?’

  
  


‘Jacks, we’ve got staff to let us back in,’ he reminded her.

  
  


‘Yeah, but if we get back at two in the mornin’, we don’t want to be wakin’ everyone up now do we?’

  
  


She looked at Rose and Mickey. ‘Have you two been to the toilet? It’s probably a long drive y’know.’

  
  


‘Mum! Let’s just go. We’re wastin’ time,’ Rose said, exasperated.

  
  


They made their way outside and around to the garages. Pete took Jackie’s bag of supplies and put it in the back of the Land Rover.

  
  


‘What ya doin’?’ she asked him. ‘What about the beamer?’

  
  


‘Jacks, Rose said that he was waitin’ on a beach. If we’ve got to drive across a beach, we’ll need the Land Rover,’ Pete explained.

  
  


‘Oh bloody ‘ell! An’ I was lookin’ forward to this little trip an’ all. Right, gimme yer keys to the front door, bring her ‘round to the front an’ I’ll meet ya there.’ Jackie turned and made her way back to the house.

  
  


Pete pulled up by the front steps and Jackie came out carrying some cushions from the lounge. She opened the passenger door and threw them in. She pulled herself in with an ‘oof’ and arranged the cushions under her bum and lower back.

  
  


‘Well a woman in my condition needs to be comfortable.’ Pete laughed, leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  
  


They were heading north. Mickey and Pete took it in turns to drive up the M1 and the A1. Occasionally they would ask Rose if they were still on course. She would just nod and tell them to keep going north.

  
  


Rose had nodded off in the back of the Land Rover. She could see the Doctor in his brown pinstripe suit, standing on the beach. His hair was sticking up as usual and he was giving her that smile, his hand held out waiting for her. She woke with a start. They were on the outskirts of Newcastle.

  
  


‘It’s across the water!’ she told them.

  
  


‘What? The Tyne, he’s come to Newcastle?’ Mickey asked.

  
  


‘No, not the river, the sea. He’s across the North Sea.’

  
  


‘Let’s have a look then,’ Mickey said as he got his Torchwood tablet out of his bag. ‘Ferries from Newcastle.’ He started a web search. ‘The Netherlands is south, Denmark, that’s east, which leaves Norway, that’s north.’

  
  


‘Norway! That’s it Mickey, Norway,’ she said excitedly.

  
  


‘Okay I’ll book some tickets for when we get to the ferry port.’

  
  


‘Oh God!’ Rose exclaimed. ‘Passports. We’ve come all this way and we’ve got no passports. If we go back I’ll miss him.’ Tears were welling up in her eyes

  
  


Without opening her eyes Jackie said. ‘Well, it’s a good job yer Mum thinks of everythin’ then isn’t it. They’re in the bag with the food.’

  
  


‘Oh Mum, I love you! What would I do without you?’ she said.

  
  


‘Ya wouldn’t be goin’ to Norway that’s for sure.’ She had a lopsided smile on her face.

  
  


+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

  
  


‘Where is he then?’ Pete asked as he leaned against the Land Rover. ‘I thought Rose said he was waitin’ for her.’

  
  


‘Trust ‘im to be late,’ Jackie said as she poured tea from the Thermos. ‘An’ ‘e’s got the cheek to call ‘imself a Time Lord. I told you about the time ‘e was a year late didn’t I?’ she asked Pete. Pete nodded with a smile. That was one of his favourite Jackie/Doctor stories.

  
  


Mickey was browsing on the tablet. ‘He’s picked a good day for it. Apparently it rains on average three days a week in Bergen.’

  
  


‘Really?’ Pete was starting to think business. ‘I wonder who makes and sells their umbrellas.’

  
  


Mickey had put the tablet down and was now scanning the beach with one of the Torchwood scanners that was in his bag. There was nothing unusual at the moment. Rose was standing on her own about 100 metres away. She looked so small and fragile out there on her own.

  
  


‘Oh God Pete! What if he wants to take her off again, we’ll probably never see her again.’ She patted her stomach. ‘This one will never know its sister.’ She was getting herself all upset. Pete put a comforting arm around her.

  
  


‘Look, He said that the breach was sealed, no going back. Whatever’s going on here, he’s not going to take her anywhere,’ he reassured her.

  
  


‘ROSE! It’s going hot, I’ve got a reading near you,’ Mickey called out.

  
  


‘Look, is that something there,’ Pete said as he pointed to the side of where Rose was standing.

  
  


They could just make out a faint, translucent figure. It was Him. They watched as Rose turned around and walked towards him.

  
  


‘Some kind of holographic projection,’ Mickey told them. ‘Wow! It’s givin’ off a shed load of energy. How’s he doin’ that?’

  
  


‘Can you hear what they’re sayin’?’ Jackie asked him.

  
  


‘Nah, too far away and the wind’s carrying their voices away from us. Anyway, it’s private,’ Mickey chided. He took out his hi-tech binoculars. ‘Oh man, he looks bad. I don’t think I’ve seen him look so sad. His lips are smiling but his eyes are almost cryin’.’ Mickey put the glasses away; it was breaking his heart to see him like this.

  
  


Suddenly, he was gone and Rose was hunched over, alone. A tiny figure on a large beach.

  
  


‘Oh Pete! I can hear her cryin’.’ Jackie ran across the beach and gently pulled Rose into a hug, which she readily returned. They just stood there for a long time, Rose crying and Jackie comforting.

  
  


‘I’d better give Alice a call when we get back,’ Pete told Mickey. ‘I hope we’re not back to square one again.’

  
  


+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

  
  


‘He’s given up on me Alice.’ Rose was wiping her eyes with a tissue. ‘But he never gives up! He always keeps going, keeps tryin’ ‘til he’s found a way of doin’ somethin’.’

  
  


‘Do you think he was lying to you then Rose?’ Alice asked gently. ‘Do you believe there is a way for him to come back but he’s too scared or it’s too risky?’

  
  


‘Oh I don’t know. I told him I loved him, maybe he wasn’t ready to hear that. But I’m sure he was going to tell me that he loved me as well. I could see that he was devastated when he thought I was pregnant.’

  
  


‘So maybe he’s right then, that it will destroy the universe, getting back to you.’

  
  


‘So am I just supposed to forget him, to find someone who’ll try to measure up to him, and fail, someone who’ll always be second best.’

  
  


‘No Rose, never forget him. Remember him and think how he would want you to be happy. You told me he sent you away once and left a message. What did he ask you to do?’

  
  


‘And if you want to remember me, then you can do one thing. That's all, one thing. Have a good life. Do that for me, Rose. Have a fantastic life.’ Rose had never forgotten those words.

  
  


‘What you’ve got to do Rose is think of ways to do that for him, in a way that would make him proud, and you happy.’ Alice stood up with Rose and gave her a long hug. ‘I’ll see myself out Rose, and think about what I said. I’ll see you on Thursday.’

  
  


Alice put Rose on light duties whilst she came to terms with the fact that she would never see the Doctor again. She was going through the grieving process all over again, and this time it had hit her hard. When she first came to “Pete’s World”, she had hoped that however long it took, the Doctor would eventually find a way through the void and come back for her. Like he had on that derelict spaceship when he saved Madame de Pompadour. That had only taken him five and a half hours.

  
  


But on that desolate beach in Norway, hearing him say that final goodbye because there was no way to get back to her, was like a dagger through her already broken heart. A dagger which was inadvertently twisted by Mickey. Once he knew that the Doctor was out of the picture for good, Mickey gently tried to get back to the relationship they had before the Doctor ever appeared in their lives. He was still in love with Rose, even after all the times she had just run off and left him to go and travel the universe.

  
  


“I’m not that immature, nineteen year old girl anymore, Mickey,” she told him. Slightly irritated that he was taking advantage of the Doctor’s absence. “I’ve grown up and moved on . . . Maybe it’s time you did the same.”

  
  


She’d immediately regretted saying that as soon as the words came out of her mouth, and it started a blazing row between them. The atmosphere at work and at the mansion was frosty between them, and Alice had to intervene and get them into a joint counselling session where they could clear the air and clear up any misunderstandings. Rose told Mickey that she did love him and she’d missed him being her best friend, but she wasn’t IN love with him. Mickey reluctantly came to terms with this and told Rose that he’d missed her too.

  
  


+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

  
  


** One year after arriving in Pete's world **

  
  


04:00 the clock on the bedside table displayed. A woman new to this might have thought it was indigestion. It may have been over 20 years, but Jackie knew a contraction when she felt one. Her waters hadn’t broken yet, but they would.

  
  


‘Pete?’ She nudged him with her elbow. ‘Pete, it’s started.’

  
  


‘Mmmmm?’ He was asleep.

  
  


‘Alpha-control to Pete Tyler, alien incursion at Tyler mansion, respond,’ she said in his ear.

  
  


He was now awake. ‘What? What did you say?’

  
  


Jackie pointed at the round bump in front of her. ‘Life changing event on the way, time to mobilize.’

  
  


Pete leaped out of bed and looked at Jackie. ‘Er, what? Right, don’t panic. Breathe, breathe.’ He imitated the breathing.

  
  


‘That’s later ya daft puddin’. they’re not regular yet. Go an’ put the kettle on and make a cuppa while I get dressed.’

  
  


Pete got dressed and went to the kitchen, while Jackie went to the on-suite toilet. She was grateful that she did, because her water broke half way through having a pee!

  
  


Jackie had a quick shower and dried herself off. She put on a comfortable baggy tracksuit and before going to the kitchen, quietly knocked on her daughter’s door.

  
  


‘Rose? You awake?’ she whispered into the dark room.

  
  


‘Mmmmm. Mum, is that you?’ she asked sleepily.

  
  


‘Yeah Sweetheart. I thought you might like to know that the baby’s on the way.’

  
  


‘WHA’?’ Rose was wide awake. ‘Are you okay? Do you need me to do somethin’?’

  
  


‘Everythin’s fine. You said you’d like to come to the hospital with us. Do you still want to?’

  
  


‘Oh yes, give me a minute and I’ll be right down.’

  
  


Jackie closed the door and went down to the kitchen for her cup of tea. Halfway there she had another contraction, she looked at her watch, it was 04:23.

  
  


When the contractions became more frequent and intense, Pete phoned the number the hospital had given them and they were advised to make their way in. Rose grabbed the bag while Pete supported his wife on their way down the steps to the BMW.

  
  


05:30 and Jackie in a wet t-shirt, was sitting between Pete’s swimming shorted legs in the birthing pool. She rested her head back against his chest and relaxed after breathing through another strong contraction.

  
  


‘I love the wet t-shirt look by the way,’ he whispered in her ear. Jackie gave a weak laugh.

  
  


‘Okay Jackie, that last one has made it ten centimetres. When the next one comes you can push,’ her midwife told her.

  
  


Rose was sitting in the relatives room, nursing a cup of hospital tea. “Wow this stuff travels between universes” she thought to herself as she took a sip of the hot, brown fluid. It stuck to the roof of her mouth before making its way down her throat.

  
  


She could hear her Mum groaning now through the door. This was it then; “it” was on the way out. She had to call the baby “it” because they didn’t know what sex “it” was.

  
  


The sonographer had asked them if they wanted to know, but Jackie asked Pete if he minded it being a surprise. Pete was just happy to know that the baby was healthy.

  
  


Rose smiled at what Jackie had told her about the scan. The sonographer had asked them if it was their first baby. They said ‘yes’ and ‘no’ together and laughed. The sonographer assumed that they had previous partners, which, in a way they had. Jackie had used the stock phrase that you tended to use when you had been involved with the Doctor. ‘It’s complicated’ she told her.

  
  


The door to the birthing room opened and the midwife popped her head around the door.

  
  


‘Miss Tyler? Rose?’ she asked her.

  
  


‘Er, yeah. Is everythin’ okay?’

  
  


The woman smiled. ‘Everything is fine. Would you like to come in? There is someone waiting to meet you.’

  
  


Rose went into the room and saw her Mum lying back against her Dad. She looked tired, but Rose had never seen her look so happy. Pete looked as though he might explode with pride at any moment.

  
  


Lying on her Mum’s chest was a little pink bundle of humanity. Pete’s arms enveloped Jackie and he was gently stroking the baby’s back.

  
  


‘Hi Sweetheart,’ Jackie said, her voice heavy with exhaustion. ‘Come and meet your little brother.’

  
  


Rose kneeled down by the side of the pool with tears welling in her eyes. Her brother had his eyes closed, and his mouth looked as though he was sucking a lemon, his chin moving as his tongue sucked inside his mouth.

  
  


‘Anthony, Stephen Tyler,’ Jackie breathed. ‘This is your sister Rose.’

  
  


Rose hesitantly reached out and stroked his wet head.

  
  


‘Oh God Mum,’ she whispered. ‘He’s so gorgeous.’

  
  


Pete and Jackie both noticed that for the first time since she had been stranded here in this ‘other’ world, her smile had returned. Not her public smile, but her private one, the one she used to give the Doctor.

  
  


‘Would you like Rose to hold him while we get you out of the pool?’ the midwife asked.

  
  


Jackie looked up and smiled at Rose. ‘Would you mind Sweetheart?’

  
  


‘Yeah, sure. Oh wow, yeah, I’d love to.’

  
  


The midwife lifted Tony off Jackie and wrapped him in a clean warm towel, giving his body a gentle rub before handing him to Rose who was now seated in a chair.

  
  


As Rose accepted the tiny bundle, something strange happened. A memory was reawakened in her. She was in a church with the Doctor. Her Dad takes a baby from her Mum and puts it in her arms.

  
  


It was a paradox, she was holding herself.

  
  


Back in the present, Rose’s vision started to blur. She was seeing things through a golden haze. She was looking at her brother and could see all of space and time rolled out before him, his options, his choices, his life.

  
  


Rose started to slowly weep.

  
  


‘Rose? Are you all right.’ She could hear echoing distant voices. ‘Rose Sweetheart, are you okay?’ It was her Mum.

  
  


‘Wha? Oh, Mum. Yeah, I’m fine. I was just carried away by the emotion.’ She wiped her eyes with her free hand.

  
  


Rose noticed that Jackie and Pete were wearing bathrobes now and she stood up as Jackie sat in one of the other chairs. She handed Tony over carefully, and holding back the tears she told them she was going to get some air.

  
  


She went through the relatives room and out into the corridor and began to sob. Holding her brother had made her realise that she would never be able to do that with her own child. Her true love was lost to her and she would never have a child with anyone but Him.


	2. Chapter Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter includes snatches of dialogue from the audio book "The Endless Night" written by Jonathan Morris, and includes Rose's first jump using the cannon, and a surprise appearance at the end.

** Chapter Ten **

  
  


** Twinkle twinkle little stars **

  
  
  


** Two years, six months after arriving in Pete's world **

  
  


Lori B. Garver, NASA Deputy Administrator was on the large video conference screen in the cabinet room. Harriet Jones was asking her about the images from the Hubble telescope.

  
  


‘Madam President, while the Hubble telescope was taking images for the extreme deep field study in the Fornax constellation, it was noticed by one of the astronomers that galaxy MACS0647-JD, 13.3 billion light years away was fainter than it was on a previous image,’ she explained.

  
  


Malcolm Taylor cut in. ‘Lori, its Malcolm Taylor. Do you know what caused the decrease in magnitude?’

  
  


‘Oh hello Malcolm. We think so, but we hope we are wrong. We postponed the extreme deep field project so that we could point everything we had at the galaxy. I’ll show you what we’ve got.’

  
  


A series of images, consisting of dots of light on a black background popped onto the screen. Each one showed a fainter and fainter point of light until it disappeared. There was also a stream of data from the spectrometers from far infrared through x-rays.

  
  


‘Dear God no,’ Malcolm said. ‘Have you verified this data?’

  
  


‘I’m afraid so, there is no doubt,’ Lori replied.

  
  


‘What?’ Harriet asked. ‘What’s wrong, what is it Dr. Taylor?’

  
  


‘It’s the beginning of the end!’ Malcolm said quietly. ‘Each star in that distant galaxy was extinguished one by one, that’s why it lost luminosity over time. If you look at the data, there is another galaxy, slightly closer that is starting to dim.’

  
  


‘Are you trying to tell me that whatever it is that’s eating galaxies is getting closer?’ There was a hint of panic in her question.

  
  


‘Yes Madam President, it will eventually reach us and eat our own galaxy,’ Malcolm said.

  
  


‘Then we must find a way to stop it,’ Harriet declared. ‘Director Tyler, please divert all your resources over to finding a solution to this phenomenon. Funding will not be an issue, whatever you need, you have only to ask. And I don’t think I have to remind you that this is top secret, if the public get wind of this, it will be global chaos.’

  
  


Harriet adjourned the meeting and Pete took Malcolm back to Torchwood to talk with Dr. Roger Stansfield.

  
  


Stansfield had stayed on at Torchwood after the dimensional transporter project had finished. He enjoyed teaching at Oxford, but the opportunity to do research in trans-dimensional physics was too good to miss.

  
  


Once he got back from the COBRA meeting, Pete called down to Special Operations to see if Rose was there. She was still on light duties, and had been out on a non critical investigation. She went up to his office, and in private he explained the findings from the Hubble space telescope.

  
  


‘Dad, what are we going to do?’ she asked him.

  
  


He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, his shoulders sagged. ‘I have absolutely no idea,’ he admitted. ‘This is the kind of thing the Doctor would know how to fix.’

  
  


+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

  
  


Five months after the emergency cabinet meeting, Dr. Roger Stansfield came bursting into Pete’s office unannounced carrying a messy pile of email printouts in his hand. He looked at Pete’s startled face and realised what he’d done. He ran back to the door and knocked it and ran straight back to the desk.

  
  


‘Mr Tyler, I’ve just had this email from Dr. Taylor at UNIT. We’ve been corresponding since the dimension transport project ended, it’s sort of a hobby of ours and we’ve been brainstorming the missing stars. We bounce ideas off each other and this one has bounced really high,’ he babbled, his words not coming quickly enough for his frustrated brain.

  
  


‘Roger calm down, what is it?’

  
  


‘Er, its complicated is what it is. Dr. Taylor would like to come over and discuss it with you, with us. It’s big, really big. Will you be able to meet us in my lab at 12:00?’ he asked. He was literally hopping from foot to foot.

  
  


Pete smiled at him; he liked his childlike enthusiasm for his subject and his ability to explain his subject matter in such a way that even a child could understand it.

  
  


‘I’ll be there at 12:00,’ he told him.

  
  


‘Excellent! Oh, and your daughter, would she be able to come too? After all, it’s the data we got from the Doctor’s actions in the lever room that gave us the clue.’ With that he turned around and ran out of the room, trying to catch the thoughts that were flying out of his mind.

  
  


‘Thank you for joining us,’ Malcolm said as Pete and Rose entered the lab. ‘I might as well get straight to the point; we think that whatever is causing the stars to go out is opening the void again. The stars are disappearing from reality.’

  
  


‘WHAT!’ Rose’s heart skipped a beat. ‘Did he just say what I think he said?’

  
  


‘We think we may be able to use this to our advantage. Roger has prepared a rather elegant demonstration of the complex physics involved in our theory.’ Roger Stansfield and his team of scientists nodded a greeting.

  
  


On a worktop along one wall, stood two glass tanks half filled with water. Floating on the water were sheets of ice a few centimetres thick. Next to the tanks were two side-arms.

  
  


‘Er, what’s going on? Does the master-at-arms know that you have firearms in here?’ Pete asked suspiciously. The idea of these two ‘loose cannons’ having firearms scared him.

  
  


Malcolm laughed. ‘Don’t worry Director, they are BB guns and they will demonstrate our theory really well. Please come over and see.’

  
  


Pete and Rose moved over to the worktop.

  
  


‘Miss Tyler would you pick up the first gun please?’ Stansfield asked her as they reached the tanks. Rose picked up the gun and examined it before prepping it to fire.

  
  


‘This first tank represents the events that created the anomaly in the lever room all those years ago. Would you fire the gun at the sheet of ice please? The glass is laminated so it won’t break.’

  
  


Rose aimed at the centre of the sheet of ice and fired. There was a ‘splut!’ as the ice split into a few pieces.

  
  


‘The metal BB pellet represents the void ship that punched a hole in the fabric of space-time, as you can see, the ice cracked just as our universe did,’ Malcolm explained. ‘Now, the other gun has plastic BB pellets loaded. Rose, could you try and fire through the cracks in the ice please?’

  
  


Rose picked up the second gun and prepped it before aiming and firing. The little yellow pellets passed through the gaps and sank to the bottom of the tank.

  
  


Roger took over the commentary. ‘The yellow pellets represent the yellow buttons that you used to pass through the cracks into the ‘water’ world. Also, the pellets can also catch some of the pieces of ice and cause more fractures. Only when you stop firing can the ice come together and refreeze into a solid sheet once more.’

  
  


‘So the ice represents the interface between the universes and how it behaves,’ Rose said, grasping the analogy.

  
  


‘Yes, very good. Now let’s move over to the next tank. Try the plastic pellets on the ice please,’ Malcolm requested.

  
  


Rose fired, and the pellets either bounced off or lodged on the surface of the ice.

  
  


‘Do you see that?’ Roger asked. ‘It’s all about energy. You need a certain amount of energy to punch through the ice. Now watch this, this is brilliant.’

  
  


Roger put on a protective glove and picked up an ordinary metal pea-shooter out of a beaker of boiling water. He went to the second tank and gently pushed the pea-shooter through the ice.

  
  


‘If we apply the same energy that the void ship did, but do it slowly, the ice doesn’t fracture.’ He let go of the pea-shooter and it stood upright in the ice.

  
  


‘Now miss Tyler, can you fire a pellet through the pea-shooter?’

  
  


Rose put the barrel of the gun against the pea-shooter and fired. There was a little ‘plink’ noise as the plastic pellet bounced off the bottom of the tank. She fired again, and again. ‘plink’, ‘plink’.

  
  


Malcolm and Roger faced Pete, standing side by side, looking very pleased with themselves.

  
  


‘We are writing a paper, ‘The Dimension Cannon Effect of the Manipulation of Trans-Dimensional Quantum States’. Director if we can re-assemble and modify the lever room, we believe with the knowledge gained from the dimensional transport project, that we could build a working dimensional cannon,’ Malcolm declared. He pushed his spectacles onto the bridge of his nose.

  
  


Rose’s jaw was on the floor. ‘Are you tellin’ me you will be able to send someone . . . send me through the void?’

  
  


‘Once the cannon is energized and has opened a hole, it will be a piece of cake.’ Malcolm pushed his glasses back on the bridge of his nose.

  
  


+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

  
  


** Three years, four months after arriving in Pete's world **

  
  


It was 19:13 and Mickey was with Jake and the rest of the blue shift in the standby room of S.O.U watching one of the soaps on TV. They were on a 08:00 to 20:00, 12 hour shift with three quarters of an hour to go.

  
  


Captain McNab came out of the operations room and looked across at Mickey.

  
  


‘Mickey, can I see you in the office for a minute?’ His voice was unusually subdued. Mickey stood up and walked over. Andy ushered him inside and shut the door.

  
  


‘I’ve just had a call from Director Tyler. It’s about your Gran. They took up her evening meal and found her unresponsive. I’m afraid she’s passed away Mickey. I’m very sorry.’ Andy put a hand on his shoulder.

  
  


‘She’d become bedridden over the last few months,’ he told him. ‘She was gettin’ old and sick. The doctor said it was a chest infection, she was on antibiotics for it but it wouldn’t clear up.’

  
  


‘Go on home son, go and say your goodbyes.’

  
  


‘Thanks Cap’n.’

  
  


The funeral was held a week later with the service being held at Rita Anne’s local church, which was full to bursting. The vicar told of her hard life which was filled with honesty, integrity and goodness. How she saw her blindness not as a disability, but as a gift which allowed her to see people’s hearts.

  
  


Mickey told of how she had kept him on the straight and narrow, even when he didn’t want to be. He had given her attitude as a teenager, and she had given him love.

  
  


People realised what an incredible woman she was when someone as famous and influential as Peter Tyler, CEO of Vitex and current director of Torchwood, read the lesson from the bible.

  
  


Family and friends then made their way to the crematorium where a final farewell was said. A reception was then held at the community centre attached to the church, with an amazing spread of food which Pete had insisted on arranging as a tribute to an amazing woman.

  
  


+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

  
  


** Three years, ten months after arriving in Pete's world **

  
  


Malcolm and Roger had assembled the “dream team” of scientists and engineers again, and rebuilt the Lever Room at Torchwood with plenty of modifications. The most noticeable being a transparent, bulletproof wall which partitioned the end of the Lever Room from the control area.

  
  


The initial work was fairly straightforward, as they were covering old ground with the individual transporter buttons. The cannon however was a new theory and new technology. The pressure was on and the clock was ticking, more galaxies were fading and disappearing, and they were getting closer.

  
  


But this team was good, and did their best work when working to a deadline (a bad choice of words, deadline). And so, here they were in the reassembled Lever Room for an initial test of the new and improved dimensional transporter. The white wall at the end of the room was now partitioned off with a transparent, bulletproof wall, with a single transparent door in the centre.

  
  


There was the same briefcase with the monitoring equipment inside and the new travel disk on top, and this time Malcolm had a control interface for the whole set-up on his workstation. ‘Being a “cannon”, we should be able to aim it,’ he explained to Pete. ‘Once the cannon is up to full power, we should be able to punch a hole through this universe and into another.’

  
  


‘Brilliant. So you’ll be able to find the Doctor’s universe then?’ Pete asked.

  
  


‘Well. Theoretically, there are an infinite number of universes. To get his universe on the first attempt would be very unlikely,’ Roger explained.

  
  


Pete frowned. ‘So if there are an infinite number of universes, how the hell do we find the right one?’

  
  


‘Oh, that’s easy,’ Malcolm told him. ‘Each universe contains information about how it deviated from all the others. Each one we visit gives us more information to find the one we want.’

  
  


‘So it’s trial and error?’

  
  


‘You could say that,’ Malcolm agreed. ‘I prefer to call it random data sampling though.’

  
  


‘Coordinates locked, we think. Launching in twenty, nineteen . . .’ a technician said as he started the countdown.

  
  


‘Here we go then. Let’s hope we’ve got it right,’ Malcolm said. At zero, through the transparent wall, they watched as a robot arm pressed the travel disk and the briefcase disappear.

  
  


‘Right then, fancy a cup of tea?’ Malcolm asked as he reached for a Thermos and some cups.

  
  


‘Cup of tea?’ Pete said incredulously. ‘What about the transporter?’

  
  


‘Oh, didn’t I say? The new device takes half an hour to recharge itself. The universe isn’t fractured like before so it takes more energy to get through.’

  
  


Back in Dr. Stansfield’s lab, they were reviewing the DVD from the briefcase. The lab mouse, Harriet, was alive and well and running on her wheel at the back of the room.

  
  


‘Ah, the case skidded along the ground for a while. Transfer of momentum from one world to another. We’ll have to try and correct for that in future.’ Roger said, reading the data.

  
  


Pete was more interested in the video recording than anything else. He was scouring the screen for any hint of a brown suit or blue box. The camera was on a continuous rotation and showed cars, office buildings, people walking by.

  
  


‘It’s going to take us a while to go through all the data to confirm that the cannon works as it was designed to,’ Malcolm told him. ‘When we’ve certified it, I’ll convene a meeting with you and brief you on its operation.’

  
  


+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

  
  


‘Well. The data confirms that the cannon works as expected,’ Pete told Rose as he came back from the briefing with the Dimension Cannon Team. ‘It’s now just a case of navigating our way through the different realities.’

  
  


‘Dad, I need to go through. I need to find him,’ she pleaded.

  
  


‘I don’t want you risking your neck. You’ve done enough. Jacks would kill me if anything happened to you,’ he told her.

  
  


‘My mum is not the boss of me,’ Rose said defiantly. ‘And nor are you.’

  
  


‘No. But look. This is a leap into the unknown, literally, and there is no guarantee that we’d be able to bring you back.’ A briefcase was one thing, but a human? And not just any human.

  
  


Rose put her hands on her hips. ‘So who do you have in mind? Someone expendable?’

  
  


This flustered Pete. ‘I don’t know . . . We’ll ask for volunteers.’

  
  


‘You don’t need to. I’ve already volunteered.’

  
  


‘But . . .’ Pete tried to reply.

  
  


‘I’m not just goin’ to sit around and wait while someone else finds the Doctor. I’ve done nothin’ else for the past year.’ She told him, remembering the worst day of her life on that damned beach. ‘My life’s been on hold. It’s like I’m a spare part, a leftover. I don’t even belong in this universe.’

  
  


‘Maybe if you tried again with Mickey,’ he suggested. After the worst day of her life on that damned beach, realising that the Doctor was never coming back, Mickey had tried to rekindle their relationship, with disastrous results.

  
  


‘Oh that’s got nothin’ to do with it,’ she said angrily. ‘The only reason you’re tryin’ to talk me out of it is because you know I’m the best person for the job. An’ I’m not goin’ to let you or anyone else stop me.’

  
  


Pete opened his mouth to respond, but saw the look on her face. It was pure Jackie Tyler. His shoulders sagged and his voice had a resigned tone to it as he started to pass on the information Malcolm and Roger had given him in the certification briefing. He had good reasons for not wanting to send his adopted daughter, and he wasn’t going to pull any punches.

  
  


‘Okay, Rose. A few final things you need to know. Once the dimension cannon has punched a hole in the other universe, we can only keep it open for a limited time. Anything from a few hours to a couple of days. And we can only create a hole big enough for one person. We can’t send anyone else through without risking dimensional collapse. So remember, this is strictly a solo mission. Once you’re through, you’re on your own.’

  
  


‘Yeah. Okay. So there’s no back up,’ she confirmed.

  
  


Pete nodded. ‘It will be an intelligence gathering mission. This internet enabled phone will be your means of communication with us. It will automatically log on to the internet and download data until you return.’

  
  


‘Okay Dad. Got it,’ Rose replied.

  
  


‘Ah. Best not call me “dad” while we do this. People might accuse me of nepotism,’ Pete said with a lopsided smile. ‘Call me Pete for now, and when you’re on the mission, call me Control.’

  
  


‘Pete and Control. Got it,’ she said with a cheeky grin.

  
  


‘The Dimension Cannon is at ninety five percent,’ a technician announced.

  
  


Pete kissed her on the cheek. ‘You’d better get into position.’

  
  


‘Okay . . . Thanks for this Da . . . Pete,’ she replied.

  
  


Rose passed through the door into the chamber and walked to the white wall at the far end. The wall where she had arrived in Pete’s world two and a half years ago.

  
  


[‘Twenty, nineteen, eighteen . . .’] The voice on the Tannoy counted down.

  
  


[‘Ready?’] Pete asked over the phone.

  
  


‘As I’ll ever be,’ Rose replied nervously.

  
  


[‘We can always send someone else,’] he reminded her.

  
  


‘No. Nobody else knows the Doctor like I do. It has to be me,’ she told him. As if she would let anyone else find the love of her life.

  
  


[‘Alright then. Establishing interface . . . Good luck.’]

  
  


‘Yeah. I’ve got a feelin’ I’ll need it,’ she said to herself as the room filled with light and she disappeared with a “WHOP”.

  
  


Pete looked at Malcolm and Roger for confirmation that his daughter had safely arrived at her unknown destination. While they poured over their screens, Pete’s phone beeped.

  
  


[‘Hiya,’] Rose said breathlessly.

  
  


‘You made it then.’

  
  


[‘Just about. Thanks for droppin’ me in the middle of rush hour,’] she said accusingly.

  
  


‘Must be some sort of spatial displacement,’ he told her, looking at the scientists and getting a nod of agreement.

  
  


[‘Yeah. Yer don’t say.’]

  
  


‘We’ll have to watch out for that on future jumps,’ he said to Rose, giving Malcolm and Roger a pointed look. ‘So, where are you?’

  
  


[‘London . . . Outside Vauxhall Station. It’s snowin’. God. I’d forgotten what the cold feels like.’]

  
  


‘So, it’s London, it’s winter. Anything else?’

  
  


[‘Give us a chance Pete. I’ve only just got ‘ere.’]

  
  


‘Not Pete,’ he said quietly, giving a sheepish sideways glance to everyone in the room. ‘Control.’

  
  


[‘Wha’?’]

  
  


‘I told you. When you’re on a mission, you have to call me control,’ he reminded her.

  
  


[‘Oh. Right. Sorry Pete.’]

  
  


He lowered his voice again. ‘We’re not messing about here Love.’

  
  


[‘I know. I know . . . So, how long have I got?’]

  
  


‘At our best estimate, about two days.’

  
  


[‘Two days! I, I could do a bit of shoppin’. Catch a show in the West End. I wonder if Mama Mia is still goin’?’] she joked.

  
  


‘Look. Just try and keep out of trouble,’ he told her.

  
  


[‘You just focus on keeping that interface open . . . Catch ya later . . . Pete.’]

  
  


‘Control!’ He said firmly to the disconnected call. He could imagine his daughter with that teasing, tongue-between-her-teeth smile on her face.

  
  


+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

  
  


“WHOP”

  
  


Rose staggered forwards from the white wall of the Lever Room. ‘Made it!’ she called out in relief.

  
  


‘I think I’m gonna be sick,’ a plump, dark haired man said by the side of her, and promptly threw up.

  
  


‘CLIVE!’ Rose cried out. She’d brought Clive Finch back with her because he’d been injured when he crashed his car and the hospitals in his world had all closed when the Sun disappeared.

  
  


[‘What the hell do you think you are doing bringing him with you?’] Pete asked angrily over the Tannoy.

  
  


‘He’s sick. He needs medical attention,’ Rose told him.

  
  


[‘We nearly lost you,’] Pete told her. Two and a half years ago Pete had caught her before she fell into the void, and today she had nearly fallen in again. It was only some quick intervention by Malcolm that boosted the interface and dragged her and her passenger back.

  
  


‘Yeah, but yer didn’t. And now y’know you can send two people through the interface,’ she said defiantly. ‘So I’ve done you a favour.’

  
  


Pete came storming through the transparent door into the chamber. ‘It was a stupid risk, and for what? He doesn’t even belong here.’

  
  


‘Nor do I,’ Rose reminded him. She belonged with the Doctor.

  
  


‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Pete asked, his anger abating.

  
  


‘When he’s feelin’ better, he can join me on missions,’ Rose suggested. ‘I’ve brought you a new recruit.’


	3. Chapter Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This will become an additional chapter to the original story. It recaps some of the events in the "Dimension Cannon" collection and adds some extra detail to Rose's appearance in "Partners in Crime", and I think a clearer explanation of "Turn Left".
> 
> There are snatches of dialogue from "The Last Party on Earth" audio book written by Matt Fitton.

** Chapter Eleven **

  
  


** The Dimension Cannon **

  
  
  


Rose had performed numerous jumps into other dimensions, and each one pointed the Dimension Cannon team in a new and more promising direction. She had seen a multitude of different Earths, with different problems. And in many of those different Earths, there was one name which kept cropping up . . . Donna.

  
  


Many Earths had taken different paths when politicians, policy makers and scientists had made different decisions and gone off in different directions. But the phone data she acquired on each jump led the team closer and closer to the universe where the same decisions as the Doctor’s universe had been made.

  
  


And then one day, Jackie found out what her daughter and her husband had been up to. It’s fair to say she went ballistic.

  
  


‘Why didn’t you tell me she was off jumpin’ around other universes?’ She asked Pete angrily when she found the spreadsheet of “Alternate Earths” on his desk.

  
  


‘Because I knew you’d react like this,’ Pete replied, which she couldn’t really argue with, as she was reacting just like that.

  
  


‘Mum. I’ve done it hundreds of times,’ Rose told her. ‘An’ although some of the worlds I’ve visited have been a bit dodgy, the Dimension Cannon itself works perfectly. Dad even came with me one time.’ As soon as she said it, she realised she probably shouldn’t have told her that.

  
  


‘YOU!’ she yelled at Pete. ‘I’d have expected better from you. A man of your age riskin’ yer neck on some half baked mission . . . Hang on. What d’yer mean “dodgy”?’

  
  


Rose couldn’t help snorting a laugh. ‘Well, y’know how we have people here that we knew in the old universe. I’ve met so many other “you and dad’s” y’wouldn’t believe. Married, divorced, widowed, never met, nearly killin’ each other. But all of them had stars goin’ out Mum, an’ we need the Doctor to stop it.’

  
  


‘The Doctor. What’s he got to do with all this?’ Jackie asked and then she put two and two together and made six. ‘Oh. Now I get it. All this is so you can get back with that mad alien innit. An’ here was me thinkin’ Alice’s counselling was finally liftin’ yer mood after that trip to Norway.’

  
  


‘Mum! It’s nothin’ like that. I’ve seen a world where the Sun goes out. Imagine an endless night where the snow just keeps fallin’ an’ fallin’ until the whole Earth is turned into a giant ball of ice . . . That’s what I’m tryin’ to prevent Mum, because that’s what’ll happen to our world if we don’t find the Doctor.’

  
  


‘Yeah . . . Well,’ Jackie said, not convinced of her daughter’s motives.

  
  


Once the secret was out in the open, Pete was able to work on his spreadsheets with Jackie around. He’d even suggested that she sit in on some of the mission briefings where she could see what they were up to and how safe it all was.

  
  


‘Do I get to have a look at this cannon thing then?’ Jackie asked him one day when she visited the Institute.

  
  


‘Corse you can Jacks,’ Pete said with a smile, and took her up to the old Lever Room.

  
  


‘Hiya Mum,’ Rose said cheerfully as she prepared for the next dimension jump.

  
  


‘Blimey. This place looks different,’ Jackie said, looking at the transparent wall. ‘So this is where it all happens then?’

  
  


‘Yeah this is it,’ Rose told her as she entered the chamber. ‘This chamber opens the interface between worlds, and these disks transport you through.’ She showed her the two travel disks she was holding

  
  


‘An it’s that easy?’ Jackie asked.

  
  


[‘There are a lot of variables to take into account,’] Pete started to explain over the Tannoy from the control room.

  
  


‘Well. It . . .’

  
  


“WHOP!”

  
  


‘. . . isn’t a day trip to Southend,’ Rose said as she was suddenly transported to another universe.

  
  


‘Well, we’re here now,’ her mother said, standing in front of her. ‘Are we here?’

  
  


‘Did you press it? You pressed it didn’t you? Before Pete finished talking,’ Rose said in disbelief.

  
  


‘I’ve sat through his mission what’sit every other bloomin’ time, an’ all his practicin’ at home. “Come to bed Pete. No I’ve got to stay up an’ calculate Ford energy”. Again. Him an’ his spreadsheets. I tell you, it does nothin’ for my self esteem,’ Jackie complained.

  
  


‘I don’t want to know!’ Rose quickly told her, holding her hand up.

  
  


‘It’s like the safety demo on an airplane isn’t it though. Hear it once, it’s all lodged in there,’ Jackie continued. She could see Rose just staring at her. ‘Rose. Sweetheart. Like I said, I’m here now.’

  
  


‘Okay Mum . . . You win.’

  
  


‘I mean, it’s only right I get to come. Pete’s had a go. Clive’s had a go, an’ he’s not even family . . . I know Pete isn’t technically either,’ Jackie rambled on.

  
  


‘MUM!’

  
  


‘Yes. I’m your mother. I’m entitled to come an’ see what kind of danger you’re walkin’ into.’

  
  


‘Look. It’s fine,’ Rose told her, spreading her arm to show her a housing estate. ‘See where we are? It’s just like home.’

  
  


‘I suppose,’ Jackie capitulated. ‘So, there’s no problem me bein’ here then?’

  
  


‘Aaargh,’ Rose growled in frustration as her phone beeped.

  
  


‘That’ll be him. Don’t answer it,’ Jackie said.

  
  


‘Corse I’m gonna answer it. Otherwise he’ll think we’ve been lost in the void.’

  
  


‘Is that a thing?’ Jackie asked, now slightly worried. ‘Could that happen?’

  
  


‘Control?’ Rose said into her phone.

  
  


[‘Rose, Love. Did you . . ?’]

  
  


‘Yeah. We’re here.’ She gave her mother a “look”. ‘Must have been a faulty trigger. Check the travel disks when we get back.’

  
  


[‘I didn’t think you mum was going,’] Pete said.

  
  


‘No. Neither did I,’ Rose said sarcastically. ‘But we’re here now. It looks like we’re back on the Powell Estate . . . Somethin’s just gone down,’ she reported with a frown. ‘I’ll call you back when we’ve got news.’

  
  


[‘Okay. You’ve got ten hours thirty. Maybe less. Take care . . . Take care of her too. Control. Over and out.’]

  
  


+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

  
  


‘Maybe we should have sent your mum earlier,’ Pete said as he reviewed the spreadsheet data.

  
  


‘You are jokin’,’ Rose said.

  
  


‘No. Really. With each jump we’ve been getting warmer and warmer, and now we are literally on fire,’ he told her.

  
  


‘Blimey. Who’d have thought it,’ Rose said with a shake of her head. ‘So is this next jump the one?’

  
  


Pete smiled at her. ‘I really think it could be, yeah. Are you ready?’

  
  


‘Wha’? To find the Doctor? I was born ready,’ Rose replied with a big grin on her face.

  
  


“WHOP!”

  
  


Rose staggered forward as she arrived outside Bond Street Station on Oxford Street, in an alternate reality.

  
  


‘Control?’ she said into her phone.

  
  


[‘Rose. You arrive safely?’] Pete asked her.

  
  


‘Yeah. Outside Bond Street Station . . . An’ it looks like how I remember it. It just feels right.’

  
  


[‘Okay Love. Just remember that it might not be what it seems. You’ve got six hours forty. Be careful.’]

  
  


‘Will do. I’m goin’ to find a newsagent and see what the newspapers say, an’ then I’ll see if I can find Clive’s website here.’

  
  


[‘Sounds like a plan to me. Control over and out.’]

  
  


Rose knew if she walked up St James Street she would be heading towards Marylebone Library. On the left, there was an off licence which doubled as a newsagent and general shop where she found a copy of the London newspaper, the Evening Standard.

  
  


‘That’ll do,’ she said to herself and bought a copy.

  
  


The date on the top was the 5th of April, 2008, and she started reading the various stories in the paper. It all seemed SO familiar. There were no floods in London. No artificial intelligence causing problems, no impending asteroid strikes like there had been in previous universes. She read the paper from cover to cover and found no anomalies. There were stories about a new slimming product, and how bee hive colonies were collapsing.

  
  


‘Okay. So far, so good. Now let’s have a look on SearchWise,’ she said.

  
  


In the library, she sat at a public computer and repeated the search she had performed oh so many years ago.

  
  


“Doctor Blue Box”.

  
  


The top result said, “Doctor Who? ...do you know this man contact Clive here”. Her heart started beating faster as she clicked on the site, and there . . . was a fuzzy picture of the Doctor when she had first met him.

  
  


‘Yes!’ she said with a fist pull. She took out her phone to call Pete, and realised she was in a library. Probably not the best place to make a call.

  
  


Rose stood on the corner of Marylebone Street and called Pete. ‘Control?’

  
  


[‘Control. What have you got Sweetheart?’]

  
  


‘I’ve only gone and got the original website I found the Doctor on all those years ago when he fought the Nesteen Consciousness,’ Rose told him with undisguised joy.

  
  


[‘Oh Love, that is brilliant. Do you think he’s on Earth at the moment?’]

  
  


‘There’s no way of tellin’. I’ve read the Evenin’ Standard from cover to cover an’ there doesn’t seem to be anythin’ he would be involved with. I’ve got a few hours yet, so I’ll keep searchin’ the internet.’

  
  


[‘Okay Love. See you later. Control out.’]

  
  


Rose went back into the library and started searching the news archives for headline stories, and wasn’t disappointed. Shop dummies coming to life, a UFO crash landing in the Thames, earthquakes in Cardiff, a large asteroid in the skies over London on Christmas day 2005, and robots fighting metal pepperpots at Canary Wharf. She remembered all of that. She started reading about a star shaped spaceship which appeared on Christmas day, 2006. ‘ _ Oh my God. That must have been just after I ended up in Dad’s world _ ,’ she whispered.

  
  


Then there was an incident at a genetics laboratory where a scientist mutated into a giant scorpion. ‘Yep. That’s got the Doctor written all over it,’ she said with a smile.

  
  


She read about the Prime Minister, Harold Saxon, who had only held office for six months before he was shot by his wife. ‘Blimey. Hell hath no fury an’ all that,’ she joked, but wasn’t convinced the Doctor would have anything to do with that. But he would have been on the replica of the Titanic which dropped out of the sky last Christmas.

  
  


She had been there for a few hours, when she heard excited voices around her, and saw people hurrying for the door. She thought it was odd that voices were raised in a library. She saw a librarian hurrying past. ‘Excuse me. Is somethin’ wrong?’

  
  


‘I don’t know. People are saying there’s a UFO in the sky. A genuine, bona fide flying saucer,’ the librarian replied.

  
  


‘Really?’ Rose said with a big grin. ‘Fantastic.’

  
  


+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

  
  


The conference room at Torchwood contained section heads from technical, scientific and field operation departments. Rose was present to give her report and Mickey was there because it was his home world.

  
  


‘So Rose, there had been an incident with an alien ship and people having the fat “sucked” out of them to make alien babies?’ Pete asked her for the benefit of the meeting.

  
  


‘Yeah. I saw the ship myself, and that’s what the police officer said at the barricade. I can’t believe that I missed the Doctor, it’s the kind of thing he would have been right in the middle of,’ Rose replied, a hint of sadness in her voice.

  
  


‘Our scans showed that you were right on top of some residual temporal energy. Is there anyone else that could have that energy? Did anyone interact with you?’ Dr. Stansfield asked.

  
  


‘There was one woman, red hair, preoccupied with a rubbish bin, just before the transporter brought me back.’

  
  


Roger checked the data log on his laptop. ‘Yes, that would be it. Do you know who she was? Could she have been the same species as the Doctor?’

  
  


‘No, the Doctor was the last of his kind. Maybe she’s travellin’ with him like I used to,’ Rose suggested.

  
  


‘Hmm. The internet data on your phone indicates that the Doctor thwarted a star shaped alien craft from invading the Earth in 2006, by their calendar, and prevented an alien ship from crashing on London in 2007, so he’s certainly still active on Earth,’ Chrissie Anderson announced.

  
  


‘Yeah. I read about that in the library,’ Rose told her.

  
  


‘We’ll have to try another jump. If we can’t find the Doctor, this mystery red head may know where he is,’ Malcolm added.

  
  


‘Malcolm, from the data we gathered from the phone, I think I might be able to set up a video link through the cannon. If the Doctor is near any kind of media screen then we should be able to talk to him,’ Chrissie said.

  
  


‘Good work Chrissie. I think that may be a useful way to proceed,’ Malcolm replied.

  
  


Pete tapped his hands on the table. ‘Right then, let’s get up to the lever room and get started.’

  
  


In the lever room, they were using video imaging equipment to try and contact the person who was literally “crackling” with residual temporal energy.

  
  


‘Where is he?’ Rose asked Malcolm as she stood in front of the camera, looking at the blank video screen.

  
  


‘We’re not sure at the moment. Ah, it's the TARDIS, quick, try and lock it down.’ On the screen, Rose could see the familiar roundels of the TARDIS. Oh God she'd missed that ship.

  
  


She saw someone briefly on the screen. ‘DOCTOR!’ she shouted, but the image was gone.

  
  


‘Was that the red haired woman?’ Chrissie asked. It had only been a fleeting glimpse.

  
  


‘Recalibrating,’ Malcolm announced, ‘He's not on Earth, er, parallel Earth anyway, he seems to be in some sort of passenger transport vehicle which is shielded against some form of intense radiation.’

  
  


‘Can you open a channel to the on-board communication system?’ she asked.

  
  


‘We are just establishing a carrier wave through the cannon now.’ Malcolm walked over and looked at the video screen in front of Rose. ‘Ah, there we are, just a bit of fine tuning and . . .’

  
  


The view of a small flight cabin appeared on the screen. Rose immediately recognised the back of the Doctor’s oh so fantastic sticky up hair.

  
  


‘DOCTOR! DOCTOR!’ she called out.

  
  


The image flickered and faded as they lost the lock on the signal. Rose looked desperately at her Dad.

  
  


‘That was him. He was there. Get him back, quick,’ she pleaded.

  
  


‘I’m sorry Rose,’ Malcolm said. ‘The intense radiation is interfering with the signal. We’ll have to wait until he leaves the planet so that we can get a stronger lock on him.’

  
  


Rose had tears of disappointment stinging her eyes. ‘I was so close to talkin’ to him.’

  
  


Pete came over and hugged her. ‘Don’t worry Sweetheart, we’ve proved it works. It’s only a matter of time before we have you two together again.’

  
  


He wasn’t crazy about the idea of losing his new daughter, and he knew Jackie would be hell to live with for a long time. But Rose’s happiness was also important to him, and if that meant her moving to another universe to be with the man she loved, then so be it.

  
  


‘Okay everybody, go grab some lunch and then we can try again,’ Pete said.

  
  


After lunch, the team reassembled back in the Lever Room. Malcolm was really excited about the search results from the cannon. The time energy source was back on the alternate Earth, in London and was strong and stable.

  
  


‘WHOP!’

  
  


Rose vanished in a flash of light. The team was monitoring the phone’s data. They had worked out how to stream data through the cannon by using the energy of the anomaly as a carrier wave and modulating the signal on top of it.

  
  


As the communication department lead, Chrissie was monitoring the incoming information.

  
  


‘Director, Dr. Taylor, something’s wrong!’ she called out.

  
  


Pete immediately thought of pulling Rose back. ‘What is it? Is Rose in danger?’

  
  


‘No, nothing like that. It’s the time stamp on the web pages, they are from 2007, their calendar.’

  
  


‘What! Are you sure? Is it archive data you’re accessing?’ Malcolm asked as he came over to look at the screen.

  
  


‘No, its real-time streaming, Rose has travelled into their past!’

  
  


‘But we set exactly the same coordinates as before. Something must have changed the reality. Fascinating! We will have to work out how to aim in time as well as space.’

  
  


Pete didn’t like the sound of this. A changed reality when your daughter was in that reality did not sound good.

  
  


‘Is Rose okay? Will she be able to get back?’ He asked Malcolm.

  
  


‘Oh yes. She’s connected to us through the cannon interface. The return function will still work as designed.’

  
  


Chrissie cut in. ‘There’s a live news feed from the BBC news channel. It seems to be reporting on the star shaped alien ship attacking London. We know the Doctor was there, I think she may have hit the bullseye this time.’

  
  


“WHOP!”

  
  


The room was filled with a flash of light and Rose ran forwards, tears running down her cheeks, she looked devastated.

  
  


‘Dad?’ She ran forwards towards Pete. He enveloped her in his arms.

  
  


‘What is it Sweetheart? What’s the matter?’

  
  


Her breathing was erratic with sobs, she could hardly speak. ‘He’s . . . He’s dead. The Doctor, he’s dead. It’s all wrong Dad. That must have been a different universe.’

  
  


‘That’s what we thought Love, but Malcolm has confirmed the settings. Something must have changed that reality.’

  
  


Pete shut down the project for the meantime whilst the cannon team worked on the time anomaly and how to navigate it, and Chrissie correlated the new data.

  
  


Rose had calmed down and was in Pete’s office with Mickey, giving a report. She was an S.O.U agent after all, and she put her emotions to one side while she recalled the events of her mission.

  
  


‘She was there again, the red head. She said her name was Donna. I think it’s the Donna we’ve heard about in the other universes. I didn’t get her last name.’

  
  


‘Good work agent Tyler,’ Pete said with a proud smile.

  
  


‘There was something else Dad. She had something on her back. I couldn’t see it when I looked at it, but it was there when you glanced away. I’ve seen something like it before; the Doctor called it a perception filter.’


End file.
